What a weekend myself and my good mate and fellow Personal Trainer Bryan Kavanagh just had over in Marbella. Just a four day break but in heinsight it was probably enough for the pair of us! I think we’d about 8hours sleep all weekend :-O

Most think that the pair of us wouldn’t know how to really let loose and enjoy ourselves in regards to taking a break from training and relaxing on our diets but believe me you are sincerely mistaken. This weekend was messy 🙂

Boy did we enjoy ourselves, we didn’t see the inside of a gym nor did we restrict ourselves to the likes of salads, meats and veg.

We did try for the first day with a salad when we arrived in Malaga and a few omelletes here and there but to be honest the diet was pretty horrible, we behaved like a pair of antelopes 🙂 but we can because we know how our metabolisms work. We know what our bodies can handle and what we can get away with. 😀

For instance on Sunday our diets consisted of two late coffees and two Maxi Bon ice creams while sitting on the beach both 388kcals each :-O the reason I’m telling you this is simply because I want to show you that it’s not all torture and you don’t have to stop eating the things you love, but you’ve got to work hard enough to be able to deserve it! 🙂

Obviously because we’ve been training so long and are strict on our diets we can get away with splurging like we just did but most people won’t so I’m going to tell you what you can do to be able to enjoy yourself but not put on those extra unwanted holiday pounds 🙂

Substitute the bad for the good.. 😉 I’m by no means saying not to go and enjoy yourself, it’s your holidays after all but I hear the same thing constantly when people come back to the gym after holidays, why did I do that, I feel horrible, I ate too much crap!..

Why do it then? I just don’t get it. You know what you’re putting into your body when you’re doing it but it still doesn’t seem to stop you! Remember little changes while you’re away can make all of the difference!..

Well here’s how to do it

# Instead of chips have a side salad

# Don’t mix sugar and fats ie don’t have a desert after a fatty meal, if you want something sugary have it on it’s own, mixing sugars and fats is one if the worst things you can do and people do it constantly! You’re body can’t break down the sugar after a fatty meal and therefore immediately stores as fat! Not what you want right??

Personal Trainer Dublin Darragh Hayes

Hi I’m Darragh Hayes.

I am a Professional Model, Company Director and Physique Transformation Specialist here in Dublin, Ireland. I have worked for Calvin Klein, D&G, Tom Ford, Lucozade, Diet Coke, U magazine, Fate Magazine, Men’s Fitness magazine, Louis Copeland but to name a few..

I currently work out of my personal training studio in Temple bar, Dublin City Centre. Click here -> Personal Training Studio Temple Bar to read more about it.

I have had a huge amount of success working with people one to one as a personal fitness trainer but the problem is I want to help everyone that will listen! This isn’t like other personal trainer websites. I intend to help as many people as possible that have questions about routines, nutrition and lifestyle management or anything regarding fitness training.

Personal Trainer Dublin - John Weldon Transformation

Dublin Personal Trainer - Louise Quinn Transformation

Please Comment on the posts! Ask questions and I will post/reply to them! This isn’t a company site or anything, just me! Ask, ask, ask!

I currently hold the title of Mr Universe Model 2011 which was held in the Dominican Republic last May and Mr International 2010 which was held in Indonesia.

I need to make it clear to everyone that I am an athlete and have never taken any banned or performance enhancing substances including Steroids or Subscription Diuretics. Everything I have achieved is through pure hard work, determination, willingness to learn and a broadened knowledge of the human body and nutrition. With regards to supplements, the most I take is a good Whey protein pre and post workouts, Multi Vits and Omega3 fish Oils. Supplements cannot make a bad diet a good one and cannot replace the nutritional value of good food.

My story so far..

From winning national and world titles to having the privilege to say I have worked with many of many of the most illustrious fashion and health&fitness magazines and fashion designers around. Many of my achievements so far have come through my desire, determination to succeed, willingness to learn and my love and passion for Sports, Health & Fitness.

Many people think that achieving the lean athletic/cover model look is unattainable. They think that people have to starve yourself and restrict fluids for days at a time. This just isn’t the case. I most certainly don’t

I’ve heard of people going to extremes with their exercise and diets, leaving themselves deprived and weak for photoshoots and I can’t understand why they put themselves through such hell. There is no need!!!

Personally my personal training programme looks more like that of an athlete. I train with intensity, lift heavy weights and eat clean, but I don’t take it to the extremes that you may have heard of. It means I train less, have more time to live and achieve better results!

The guys that take it to those extremes have it all wrong, they train 6 days per week or more and like bodybuilders ’bulking up in between shoots and then have to severely restrict calories in order to drop the body fat they have accumulated. It doesn’t make sense to me. I only train 3-4 days per week but it’s because of the athletic way I train that I only have to do it 3-4 times per week.

I was quite young when I started going to the gym purely because it was part of my training as a professional footballer. I was about 17 when I first started but I got hooked and of course I was training like everyone else, the wrong way. I was training like a bodybuilder, isolating body parts and therefore training 6-7 days per week. Thinking back now I laugh because it was nuts!!

I am lucky that I have really good genetics. I started to fill out and went from the “skinny” kid to the “You look different, bigger” guy. It felt good, people started noticing that I was putting on muscle but again it was training that made no sense looking back on it now.

God I used to spend hours in the gym neglecting life. I would put friends and family off for training. This was down to looking at and listening to the wrong people. I didn’t want to be the “bigger” guy anymore. I wanted to be “RIPPED”

This all fuelled my desire more and soon nobody had the answers to the questions I was asking. I wanted to have a greater understanding of how and why things happened the way they did. I was sick of reading crap in magazines and listening to the old school bullshit. I wanted to know more so I researched, I studied and I never stopped asking questions. It took time but I slowly built up a solid knowledge of nutrition and training the right way, the athletic/cover model way!

No longer did I train like a bodybuilder doing boring isolation exercises and spending 6-7 days a week in the gym. I changed my mindset and started training like an athlete, like a cover model, using explosive weighted and bodyweight movements

People then started asking me the intricate questions I was once asking, even people who helped me in the gym and who once answered my questions. This all led to me getting my qualifications and in my view I will never stop learning because my appetite is so strong for knowledge.

A few more years of putting my new found knowledge to use and I started getting modelling jobs I never thought possible. The likes of Calvin Klein, D&G, Lucozade, Diet Coke, top Asian supplement company L-Men and top men’s fitness magazines were booking me. These were the types of jobs I could only dream of and now they were actually happening.

Train athletically, eat clean and you can have a cheat meal every now and again. It’s not a problem. This is how I do it and it works. I look forward to my cheat day once a week and would still perform this ritual leading up to a photoshoot. I am in single digit body fat all year round because of training athletically and eating the way I do.

For instance I couldn’t train last year for three months because of an injury but I didn’t get fat or lose too much muscle because I kept my diet clean. It just makes sense! Eat clean and stay lean!

Again I can’t reiterate enough how much hard work this is and you have to be 100% committed to learning and achieving. It’s what has gotten me where I am today. It’s one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, committing fully to the lifestyle and sacrifices I have had to make to try succeed at my dream. It’s been really tough at times and I have enjoyed the journey so far, although I wouldn’t say I have yet achieved my dream, I most definitely haven’t. This is one of the main reasons that keeps me so motivated and driven.

I always encourage anyone with a dream to stop dreaming about it and to coin one of the best phrases around “Just Do It”. This is my mentality , make the necessary steps to put them into action, a thought is still a thought unless you do something about it. Make a plan and JUST DO IT!